Weather Forecast

Andrew Hazzard / Forum News Service

Primary tabs

Author Content

FARGO—A man accused of ordering the murder of 24-year-old Austin Forsman at the Flying J truck stop in Grand Forks in March 2016 and leading a methamphetamine trafficking ring in the region has been found guilty in federal court. Modesto Alfredo Torrez, 35, was convicted of three of the four counts against him: murder in the furtherance of a drug conspiracy, conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance and obstruction of justice.

FARGO—After U.S. Attorney Chris Myers announced the government had rested its case accusing a man of ordering the 2016 murder of 24-year-old Austin Forsman, the defendant turned to his family in the courtroom to reassure them. "I think the evidence shows I never ordered to kill this kid," Modesto Torrez told his family. That decision is now in the hands of a 12-member jury who will determine whether the government proved Torrez called for Forsman's murder at the Flying J truckstop in Grand Forks and was a leader of a meth distribution ring in the Red River Valley.

FARGO—Opening arguments began Thursday morning, Sept. 28, in the trial of a man accused of ordering the death of a 24-year-old at a Grand Forks truck stop in 2016 as part of a meth trafficking conspiracy. Modesto Alfredo Torrez, 35, is accused of being the ringleader of a conspiracy that trafficked large amounts of meth in the Red River Valley and calling for the death of Austin Forsman, who was murdered at the Flying J truck stop in Grand Forks on March 11, 2016.

WARREN, Minn.—An elderly Minnesota man who fired at a mail carrier and sheriff's deputy at his home in March was killed by an agent with the U.S. Border Patrol, according to an investigation by the state. A report on the March 20, 2017, shooting death of 73-year-old Clarence Duane Huderle obtained from the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension shows the unidentified Border Patrol agent is a member of the Pine to Prairie Drug Task Force. The Polk County Attorney's Office ruled the shooting was justified.

GRAND FORKS — Kim Miller and Nina Wichern needed to be there. Miller, of Arvilla, N.D., and Wichern, Grand Forks, were among the hundreds who searched woods, fields and rivers in North Dakota and Minnesota looking for a trace of Savanna LaFontaine-Greywind last weekend.

THIEF RIVER FALLS, Minn.—A Thief River Falls man who was convicted of multiple domestic assault incidents, including lighting his son's clothing on fire and causing a standoff with police after attacking two women, was sentenced to 60 days in jail this week. Michael Roy Nelson, 46, was convicted of a misdemeanor assault charge and received a stay of adjudication for a felony terroristic threat charge stemming from an April 10, 2016, incident in which he attacked his son and father. He was sentenced Monday, Aug. 21, by Pennington County District Court Judge Kurt Maben.

ROSEAU COUNTY, Minn.—Hundreds of pigs that died in a farming accident in northern Minnesota were disposed of in a rendering plant, authorities say. Michael Crusan, communications director of the Minnesota Board of Animal Health, said that 473 pigs died in a farming accident in Roseau County on Oct. 26.